Transcription of the speech given by Professor Anne-Sophie Nyssen, Rector-elect of ULiège, at the 2022-2023 Academic Year Opening

Speech by the Rector-elect

"Turning over a new leaf

Well, here we are... dear all,
Once again, the ermine has changed shoulders.

It's always a great moment, solemn and moving.

As you know, the ermine symbolizes innocence and purity in justice or education, as well as being a symbol of power, royal or imperial, a symbol which - it is said - was very popular with Napoleon.

But today, from the top of these banners, we see not forty centuries, but two centuries, two long centuries, 62 rectors, and for the first time, a female rector! So, while it's certainly not the event of the century, it's still a bit "historic" for our university.

It seems that this time, a new page is being turned.
So, people ask me: "Are you feeling proud?

Yes, of course, I feel proud, and at the same time lucid..

You've elected a woman, who incidentally is called Anne-Sophie Nyssen. It was you who decided that it was time, and perhaps even more than time.

That puts my merit into perspective, even if I dare to think that it's also a program and values that you've chosen. And above all, it's up to you to be proud!

So, we're going to keep going, advancing again and again, gradually silencing all the little rumours that whisper in people's heads and in the shadows " they don't have the shoulders ". We're going to continue this fight - never definitively won, as recent American news shows - for equality and respect for women, for respect for all, against all discrimination, against all violence.

Yes, of course, I feel proud, and at the same time immensely grateful to my university.

My parents wanted so much to believe in promotion through education that they came to live here, in Sart Tilman, on the edge of the campus.

I'm proud that this university gave them reason to believe, along with all those who, as they say, "made it" thanks to their studies.

I'm proud, and moved, to soon be leading an institution with such a magnificent role to play.

So, this public university, which gives the greatest number of people a chance to access a university culture, we're going to defend it, grow it, embellish it.

• We are going to implement the reformed Paysage decree, continuing if necessary to make adjustments based on objective results, in order to protect its spirit: preserving freedom of access to university, facilitating academic paths, but also helping students to stay clear-headed.
• We're going to play our full part in implementing the FIE Reform (initial teacher training), because it's also our role to help raise the standard of compulsory teaching. It's not just a noble mission: it's a political necessity, and in the turbulent times we're entering, a fundamental condition for the durability of our democratic societies, which are clearly nowhere definitive.

Does this mean we're abandoning all ambition for excellence? On the contrary!

I'm just as proud when I see the quality of our courses and their accreditation, the international recognition of our teaching innovations, the adaptability we demonstrated during the COVID crises, and in particular the responsiveness shown with the development of COVID tests, with the distribution of solidarity baskets in the face of student precariousness, or during the floods, the excellence of our fundamental and applied research, the prestigious prizes won by our researchers and their teams, the strong commitment of our students to equality projects, the recent discoveries of our cutting-edge teams, and also the gradual embellishment and renovation of our real estate and artistic heritage.

I'm proud, and at the same time well aware of the challenges that lie ahead. Let's not hide from the difficulties!

There's something of a paradoxical injunction in this commitment to openness to all and the simultaneous ambition for excellence. Especially if we continue to have to do so with a closed funding envelope, while the number of our students increases every year.

But the paradox is not insurmountable.

Certainly, we'll never be Harvard, because we don't rely on elitist selection and fifty-five thousand dollar minervals, because we don't receive hundreds of millions of dollars in annual donations from our alumni patrons. We'll never have the lifestyle of a Nobel Prize nursery.

But based on another model, another vision of the world, we can build a radiant, attractive university, in symbiosis with its city and region, open to the world. We will need more resources, imagination, solidarity and a strong, shared commitment to this common goal.

So we're going to redouble our efforts to increase and consolidate our funding.

I say this to our sponsors here today: good news or bad, you're likely to find this term of office ... demanding, because we're going to need your support and your courage!

I say this to all the members of our university: we're going to need your initiative, all your creativity and entrepreneurship, and we're going to strengthen the ethical framework and transparency requirements which, paradoxically, will unleash our talents. Always this story of a system of links that liberate..

I say this to our thousands of alumni around the world, and indeed to all our citizens: we need you, we're going to come to you, and even if you're not billionaires - but especially if you are - you'll have the opportunity to support your university, notably through its Foundations.

We will redouble our efforts to increase the efficiency and quality of our teaching and research.

With the dedicated help of our administration, we will continue and accelerate the simplification of procedures, free up initiative, pursue the transformation of teaching methods thanks in particular to the implementation of our digital plan, continue to improve the synergy between research and teaching, and therefore between scientists and academics.

We are going to create support for excellence that mirrors support for students in difficulty.

We are going to re-establish and develop local and regional synergies, with the City of Liège, whose Mayor I welcome here, with the Hautes Écoles, with the Province, with the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, whose Minister-President I welcome here, with the Region, with socio-economic and cultural players, with other French-speaking universities, whose Rectors I warmly welcome here. We are also going to develop our relations with Flemish universities, and of course develop our international relations and cooperation.

And then, I hope, we'll succeed in overcoming all those blockages, those seemingly insoluble and irritating contradictions that present themselves to us at every level and in all sorts of areas: openness or excellence, women or men, mutualization or competition between universities, the Einstein telescope or wind turbines, and even: energy-efficient renovation of buildings or compliance with the requirements of the heritage commission.

And now to the essentials.

I'm not telling you anything new: the world is undergoing radical and, on the scale of history, ultra-rapid transformations.

This summer, while visiting the annual Rencontres Photographiques d'Arles, I was struck by this video montage and its resonance with the uncontrollable fires that were breaking out all over the place.

Out-of-control climate change, the destruction of the environment and biodiversity, the depletion of resources, the health threats posed by pollution, global demographic dynamics and the ageing of our populations, the historic level of national and global inequalities - even inequities, changes in the global geography of financing and value production chains, the acceleration of technological innovation and, in particular, digitalization, the transformation of work and social relations, the transformation of global geopolitical relations, and now the return of war to Europe - all these factors project a tsunami of uncertainty into the future.

The UN speaks of an "existential threat", and according to astrophysicist and ecological whistleblower Aurélien Barrau, " each of the pillars on which the habitability of this planet rests is in the process of giving way. "

We don't know where we're going, but one thing is certain: the scale and dynamics of the change underway are those of the great historical metamorphoses, and present us with a gigantic challenge, not just of adaptation, but of regaining control over what we might call the "piloting" of our civilization.

So do I really need to tell you how important and urgent it is for a university like ours to fully commit to this systemic, multidimensional challenge?

We literally have to redefine our new public function. In my view, this requires two essential conditions:

• The first is the massive recomposition of our teaching, with a restructuring around the challenges of environmental and social transition, and around interdisciplinarity. We're going to label the course we've been offering for three years now to our students in the first years, by integrating it into the PAE, the Annual Study Program. But that's not enough. We need to be more ambitious; we're going to create a specific transversal fund for teaching and research. I would like us to draw inspiration from the growing number of initiatives in this field, such as the "Institut Supérieur de Développement Durable" created by the École des Mines de Paris.
• The second is a change in leadership style. I firmly believe that governance based on collective intelligence has become indispensable. Governance based on commitment to shared values, cooperation, solidarity, trust, transparency and benevolence, rather than competition, secrecy and mistrust.

The increasing complexity and uncertainty around us make the model of the great visionary leader illusory.

On June 10, 2016, in an atypical speech at an HEC graduation ceremony in France, Emmanuel Faber, the Managing Director and future CEO of Danone, movingly recounted how the declaration of his older brother's schizophrenia, with its internments and eventual death, had turned his values and his life upside down. How his relationship with his brother had become an inner voice giving him a sense of what was essential.

He told the new graduates: " I'm convinced, after 25 years of experience, that this invisible hand you've been told about doesn't exist. And if it does, it's even more crippled than my brother. {It's broken}. In short, we only have your hands - my hands - all our hands, to change things and make them better. "

And he concluded with this question: " Who is your brother? Who is that little brother, that little sister, who lives inside you and knows you better than you know yourself {...}, that little voice, who speaks of you as even greater than you think you are? "

Dear colleagues, dear students, my friends,

One page is turning and we're going to write the next.
We have our hands, all our hands, to do this.

I want us to re-enchant the University of Liège.

It won't be easy!
We don't live in a world of Care Bears. The same Emmanuel Faber knows all about it, having been "fired" from his position as CEO of Danone after four years by the vulture funds that acquired a stake in his company.

It won't be easy, but that's my challenge to us!

If there's an element of utopia in my appeal, so much the better. As the cartoonist Gébé wrote in Charlie Hebdo and his comic strip L'An 01, " Utopia reduces to cooking, which is why you need a lot of it to start with. "

Thank you for listening.

There are two things that make me particularly optimistic.
The first is your reaction, the great momentum and all the expectations that have been expressed with regard to this new mandate, and which have deeply moved me.

The second is here in the front row! And I'm calling on them to join me - they're my dream team!

Thank you all.

I declare open the academic year 2022-2023.